


Things Beyond Comprehension

by kathkin



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, but like no more violent than The Highlanders, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2349311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It was one of the first lessons Jamie had ever learned: if you wanted to get the measure of a man, you looked at his dæmon. And if you couldn’t see a man’s dæmon? Well, you couldn’t trust him at all.</i> An AU in which humans have dæmons and Time Lords don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Beyond Comprehension

**Author's Note:**

> AU in which everything is the same except humans have [daemons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A6mon_%28His_Dark_Materials%29). No knowledge of _His Dark Materials_ required. A good deal of knowledge of _The Highlanders_ required. 'Clodagh' is pronounced 'Clo-da'. Owes a lot to [The Swan Princess](http://archiveofourown.org/works/138325) by [Mad_Maudlin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin). See end notes for daemon key.

_Culloden_

There was something about their prisoners that made Jamie uneasy, but he couldn’t say what it was till they were standing still. One, two three people; one, two dæmons.

Two dæmons, both of them birds; the magpie was the girl’s, the black-faced gull the young man’s. But the strange little man, the one they said was a doctor – where was his dæmon? Jamie looked him up and down, his unease twisting into outright fear when he couldn’t see hide nor hair of it. At his heel Clodagh bristled.

His first thought was that the man was a witch – but whoever heard of a man witch? He made himself be calm. Surely, he thought, surely the man’s dæmon was just very small and hidden in a pocket. A slug, or a spider; aye, that would suit him, a spider.

Still, he felt uneasy. You couldn’t trust a man if you couldn’t see his daemon. That was one of the first lessons Jamie had ever learned: if you wanted to get the measure of a man, you looked at his dæmon. A rabbit like Kirsty McLaren, a wolfhound like Jamie’s father, a cat like Clodagh, those were dæmons you could trust; a snake, a spider, a toad, those you didn’t trust easily. And if you couldn’t see a man’s dæmon? Well, you couldn’t trust him at all. 

The doctor was a spider for sure. An Englishman, but he tended the laird’s wounds; an Englishman, but once the redcoats were on top of them he changed his voice and called himself a German. It didn’t save him. Jamie took a grim satisfaction in that, that the doctor hadn’t managed to talk his way out of a hanging.

They said that when a man died his dæmon went out like a candle-flame. Clodagh tried to stand by him while they put the noose about his neck, nestling against his ankles. The sergeant barked, “get that scrawny cat down.” One of the redcoats prodded her with the muzzle of his rifle till she hissed and jumped to the ground. 

(If you shot a dæmon, fire spilled out like blood before they vanished. Jamie would happily have gone his whole life without knowing that.)

‘Like a candle-flame’ was what they said, but that made it sound peaceful. Jamie’d never seen it before that day, and he wished he still hadn’t. There was nothing peaceful about it. He’d seen a bird-dæmon vanish as she tried to fly away, seen the panic in a dæmon’s eyes as she saw what was coming, seen Alexander’s fox-dæmon wink out as if she’d never been there before he even hit the ground. Now his Clodagh was going to go the same way and he hadn’t so much as said good-bye.

*

He’d been fifteen when Clodagh turned wildcat, which they told him was old, but had felt too soon. Clodagh had loved to fly; she’d been anything with wings when he was a boy, a kite or a kestrel more often than not when he was older. Why she’d settled with four feet on the ground he’d never understood.

But there she was – out on the moors one day, cat-shaped and refusing to change. She’d been a kite, flying as high above his head as she could get without tugging, which wasn’t far; then she’d dropped to the ground and, in a tumble of fur and feathers, become a wildcat. He’d not thought much of it till she looked up at him and said, “what do you think?”

“I think there’s rain coming on,” he said, hunching into his clothes.

“No, I mean of me,” she said.

Jamie stared down at her. “Eh?”

“I think this is it,” said Clodagh, nosing at her own tabby paws. 

“Don’t be daft,” Jamie said, for she was a bird through and through, had been for years. Clodagh didn’t answer. She sat back on her haunches and began to groom herself. Jamie stood and waited for her to give the game up and turn back into a bird, but she wouldn’t. She walked all the way home like that.

“Do you really not like it?” They were atop the last hill, spitting distance from home. She sounded so earnest, and it sunk in at last what had happened.

“Did y’just settle?” he said to her.

“Aye,” said Clodagh. Her tail swished back and forth.

It was an uneasy moment, for Jamie had been so sure she was turning out to be a bird; it was like looking into a mirror and seeing the wrong face staring back at him. “Oh.”

“Do y’not like it?”

Jamie considered her, and nodded. “Aye. It’s good enough.” Clodagh accepted that, and began to trot down the hill.

When Jamie said what had happened, his father just grunted and said it was about time, but Jamie could tell he was pleased, for wildcat was a good, sturdy shape for any dæmon. He couldn’t complain, for all he missed having wings.

_Inverness_

The Doctor talked his way out of hanging after all, and though part of him would happily have left the two Englishmen to hang, Jamie found that he was glad of it. The Doctor was changeable as the winds, but he tended to the Laird, good as his word, and Ben seemed a trustworthy sort.

Knee-deep in water, Clodagh balanced on his shoulders so as not to get her paws wet, he watched the Doctor argue his way out of prison. It was strange, he thought, that the Doctor could make people trust him so easily with his dæmon all hidden away. It was almost as if no-one noticed. “Maybe they don’t,” Clodagh murmured in his ear. “We didn’t, at first.”

Ben was certain that Doctor would come back for them, and Jamie wanted to believe him; but the Doctor seemed so fickle, and Ben’s speech was so strange. “I’m still worried,” he said.

“Don’t you worry about him, mate. Worry about us.” Ben pointed up to the top of their cell, where a faint, greenish line marked the bricks. “See what line? That’s where the water comes up to, and tonight is _not_ my bath night.” 

Jamie just grunted. Clodagh twitched her tail, agitated. Ben’s dæmon had flown up to perch atop the bars above them, looking about herself. There was a ringing clang as one of the guards stamped upon the bar. “Down, you.” The gull-dæmon fluttered back down to Ben’s shoulder. Jamie saw her beak move as she whispered in his ear.

“And I don’t suppose you like getting wet, you scrawny tabby,” Ben went on.

“Aye, she’s a wildcat, and you’d do well to remember it.” Ben’s eyes flicked to Clodagh as if only just registering her size, and Clodagh hissed to hammer the point home. She had a hiss like a serpent.

Jamie’s feet were numb, and he was almost glad of it, they’d been so sore. They were packed into the cell so tight he was afraid to move in case he trod on someone’s dæmon, and half of them were sick already. He was sure he’d catch his death if he stayed down there much longer, and he didn’t fancy the Laird’s chances, no matter what the Doctor said.

Ben stooped to check on the Laird, and found him sleeping. While he was crouching, Jamie said, “who are you, anyway?”

He’d half expected not to get a straight answer, but Ben was surprisingly forthcoming. “Ben Jackson,” he said. “I’m a sailor.”

“In the English navy?” Jamie guessed. “Are you a deserter?” The redcoats had said he was, but Jamie wasn’t about to trust them.

“I suppose I am.” Ben stood and wiped his hands on his trousers. His dæmon had flown up to the bars again, and was peeping out at the guards. “I’m supposed to be in London.”

“How’d you come to be here?”

“Well, you see,” Ben started, but gave up. “Oh, it would take too long to explain.” Jamie shifted uneasily, and Ben must have noticed, for he went on. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, mate, I just don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

Jamie had half a mind to say _try me_ , but he didn’t think it would do any good. “What’re you doing with that Doctor?”

Ben took a while to answer. “I just ran into him, and Polly,” he said. “We’ve been travelling with him for a couple of months. It was a bit of an accident.”

“I don’t know how you can travel with someone by accident,” Jamie said.

“You don’t know the Doctor,” was all Ben said. His dæmon flew back to his shoulder and began twittering softly in his ear.

Clodagh’s tongue flicked Jamie’s earlobe. “Ask about his dæmon.” 

“What’s his dæmon, then?” said Jamie.

“Who, the Doctor?” said Ben, his head tilted back to look through the bars. “Don’t know. Never seen it myself.”

“It doesnae bother you?” Ben shrugged. “They say it’s witches who don’t have dæmons.”

“Oh, I know this one,” said Ben. “Because they’ve sold their souls to the devil, right? You’re a superstitious lot, aren’t you?”

“It’s the truth,” said Jamie defensively. “My grandfather met one.”

“Of course he did,” said Ben. “Alright. But the Doctor’s not a witch.”

“You sound awful sure,” said Jamie.

“I trust him,” said Ben. And for all Jamie didn’t agree, he couldn’t help but respect that, for he knew what it was like to trust someone so completely. But how could you trust a man if you’d never laid eyes on his dæmon? He wasn’t sure he could.

__

_The Annabelle_

“Do you think we’re for the gallows after all?” said Clodagh quietly.

They were in the ship’s hold, most of the men about them asleep. She had her head rested upon her knee. Jamie was running his fingers through her fur, trying to work out the snags. It was matted here and there with dirt and dried blood. “You need a bath.”

“I hate baths,” she said. She was as fussy as a real cat when it came to water. “We are for the gallows, aren’t we?”

“Aye, I think so,” said Jamie. “Don’t worry. You’ll not be the one with the noose around your neck.” She looked up at him balefully, her pupils wide in the low light. He knew what she was thinking. When a man died, his soul went on to heaven or hell; his dæmon melted away. Jamie might go somewhere else when he died, but it’d be without Clodagh. He couldn’t imagine it, but he knew it was true.

They’d taken Ben up on deck to drown him, his dæmon clasped in a guard’s dæmon’s mouth like a puppy. The Doctor was long vanished. And he and the Laird were for the gallows after all. He wished he’d died on the field; it was worse now, for having let himself have any hope at all.

He must have fretted himself to sleep, for he was woken by another dæmon nosing at Clodagh. He blinked awake and saw a lithe little shape in the shadows. The Laird’s stoat-dæmon. “Whist, you,” she said before he could speak. “We have weapons, and a plan. Wake the others.”

“What happened?” said Jamie.

Clodagh yawned. “The Doctor,” she said, though Jamie didn’t know how she knew. She climbed up onto her paws and trotted over to nudge the next man’s dæmon awake.

*

Upon the deck, the battle won, Jamie sat crouched behind a water butt, collecting a coil of rope and listening with half an ear to the Doctor and his strange friends. “But we’ve _won_ ,” Polly was saying.

“Only for the moment,” said the Doctor.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Well, the real job’s only just beginning,” said Ben. “Getting back to the tardis with only a rough idea of where it is and the whole English army out to stop us.” They moved away as they kept talking, and Jamie wondered idly what a tardis was; probably some Sassenach word. 

He was about to stand up when Clodagh nudged his hand. “I don’t fancy France,” she said.

That startled him. For all the notion of a long boat-trip frightened him, he’d been planning to stay with his laird. “Nor do I,” he said. “But where else would we go?”

“You heard them,” said Clodagh. “They need a guide. We know the moors. They’ll be dead out there without us.”

She meant the Doctor and his friends. “Aye, well I don’t trust them.” He meant that to be decisive and made to stand, but she kept pushing.

“They came through, didn’t they?” she said. “More than the prince did, in the end.” She set off walking down the ship, her tail high. He let her walk away until he felt a tell-tale tug beneath his ribcage, and he had to follow or else it would start to hurt.

Kirsty caught him by the arm on the deck, her eyes shining in the lamplight, her dæmon tucked safely under her arm. “Where are you going?”

“Hush,” said Jamie. “Tell the Laird I’m going with the Doctor. He’ll need a guide to get him home.” Wherever home was for a man like the Doctor.

He expected Kirsty to argue, but she must have trusted the Doctor sooner than he did, for she simply nodded. “You keep safe now, Jamie McCrimmon,” she said. She stood on tip-toes to kiss his cheek. Her dæmon poked his head out and whispered good-bye to Clodagh with a twitch of his ears.

On the quay, watching the light of the ship dwindle, he wondered if he was making a mistake. But there was no time for wondering. The Doctor needed his help.

__

_Culloden_

He was soon to learn just how you could _accidentally_ travel with someone. The Doctor wanted taking back to the cottage where the McLarens had held him captive, and that Jamie could do easily enough; but where to then? They were so cagey when he asked.

“Oh, my feet,” said Polly when they reached the cottage. She stopped to rub them, the Doctor and Ben lingering impatiently. 

“You need better shoes,” said Jamie.

“I dare say,” said Polly. “It isn’t much further, is it Doctor?”

“Just over the hill, now,” said the Doctor. “Come along, all of you.” He strode onwards, his ridiculous hat crooked on his head. Polly caught Jamie’s eye and pulled a face as if to say _he’s always like this_. Her magpie-dæmon was roosting on her shoulder; Ben’s gull was still flying. The Doctor’s dæmon was invisible, though Jamie had watched carefully for any trace of it – something moving in the pockets of his jacket or his trousers, perhaps.

He trailed behind with Polly as they climbed down the hill into the copse on the other side; and there, amidst the trees, stood the strangest thing. It looked like a shed, but he couldn’t see the point in a shed that small, so small maybe four men could fit shoulder to shoulder, if their dæmons weren’t too big. It was blue, best he could tell in the darkness, and there were words he couldn’t read written across the top.

When the Doctor unfastened the door, light spilled out, light and a queer humming sound. He stopped short and watched as first the Doctor and then Ben vanished inside. 

Clodagh tilted her head, looking up at him. Then, without a word, she paced down the track towards the doors. She glanced back at him once and stepped inside, pulling him after herself.

It was like some strange dream. He found himself wondering if he’d died on the gallows after all and this was what came next, but Clodagh was there with him. The inside of the box was like nothing he’d ever seen, every inch of it gleaming white, the walls lined with round windows like portholes on a ship. In the centre stood a column that reached only partway to the ceiling, and about it a bench covered in all sorts of queer shapes and instruments. The Doctor did something that made a click and the doors closed behind him.

He looked at Clodagh, expecting to see her bristling with fear, but she was looking about herself curiously, her tail waving back and forth. She wasn’t afraid at all. “What’s this?” he said.

“You’ll find out,” said the Doctor with a wry smile. Another _click_ , and the column began to rise and fall, a grinding sound filling the air.

“I don’t think I want to.” Jamie turned to leave, but he couldn’t see any sort of door handle.

Clodagh was trotting forward. She leapt, fluid as only a cat could be, up onto the workbench and began to nose about curiously. “Oh, dear,” said the Doctor. “No, no. No dæmons on the console. I must insist.” He flapped his hands at her. She cocked her head, but didn’t move. “Oh, please get down – I’m sorry, what do I call you?”

You didn’t tell someone your dæmon’s name unless they were family, or close enough; every highlander knew that. It was dreadful bad luck, and even if it wasn’t, Clodagh never said a word to anyone who wasn’t Jamie if she didn’t have to. And yet she looked up at the Doctor, flicked her tongue out of her mouth, and said, “Clodagh.”

“Clodagh,” the Doctor repeated. “A fine name. Please get down, Clodagh.” He flapped his hands at her again. Clodagh bent her head and nosed at a box-shaped thing. 

Jamie stepped forward, meaning to lift her down and away from the grinding column, but there was no need. Ever contrary, she went up rather than down, scrambling onto his shoulders.

The Doctor moved away, muttering to himself. Ben stood beside Jamie and said, “he does that. Talks to your dæmon. Takes some getting used to.”

It wasn’t that. Jamie shook his head. “You dinnae tell people your dæmon’s name.”

“Why not?” said Ben.

“If someone knows your dæmon’s name they can use it to put a curse on you,” said Jamie, and though he knew it was true it felt hollow in that strange place.

“Oh, that’s just a superstition,” said Polly carelessly. She motioned at the magpie perched upon her shoulder. “This is Toby, and there’s no such thing as curses. Clodagh’s a nice name. What does it mean?”

Jamie shrugged, for he didn’t know and didn’t want to admit it. “What’s this?” he said again.

“It's a machine,” said Ben, “which will take us away from Scotland forever.”

Jamie considered that. Upon his shoulders, Clodagh was still quite calm, but he reached up to scratch her behind the ears, as if she needed quieting. “Where to?”

__

_The TARDIS_

Polly’s magpie-dæmon was a talkative little thing, when there weren’t too many people around. Toby had a piping voice and fluttering wings and liked getting his word in when it wasn’t welcome. Clodagh took a liking to him at once, and took to pinning him playfully to the ground when Jamie and Polly were talking.

Ben’s dæmon – Jamie didn’t learn its name for over a week, until the Doctor was fussing about with the TARDIS controls. He had a wee panel opened up on the console and he was poking around inside. “Oh, bother it,” he said. “Pip, would you mind? I think your beak is about the right size.”

Pip glanced at Ben and flew down to the console, peering into the open panel, head cocked. “Here? Like this?”

Jamie was startled to hear a male voice. He’d never met a man with a male dæmon before – a woman with a hen-dæmon once – and he wasn’t sure at all what it meant. When he got to asking Ben, he just shrugged and said they’d been born that way.

“Yes, just there,” said the Doctor. Pip dipped his black head inside and let the Doctor adjust the wires about him, careful not to touch.

The Doctor’s dæmon? Days dragged by and Jamie didn’t see it. He’d been expecting to, once he understood what the TARDIS was – the Doctor’s home, as strange as it was. Surely the Doctor’s little dæmon would show itself once it was safe at home.

Days turned into weeks, and he found a moment to ask Polly. “What’s the Doctor’s dæmon, then?”

He wasn’t all that surprised by the answer. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen it. Neither of us have.”

“It must be something very small,” said Jamie.

“That’s what Ben thinks,” said Polly. They were out of doors, on a windswept moor that would remind Jamie of Scotland, except the sky above them was green, with two moons hanging low in the twilight. The Doctor and Ben were away atop the hill, inspecting something interesting on the ground. 

“What do you think?” Jamie ask.

Polly glanced at the Doctor as if making certain he wasn’t listening. “I wonder sometimes if he doesn’t have one.”

“Doesn’t have a dæmon?” Jamie echoed. “How can he not have a dæmon?”

“I don’t know, but if he’s got one it’s hiding better than any dæmon I’ve ever known,” Polly said. “It’s just a thought – but sometimes I think he’s not altogether human. He can change his face, you know.”

“Aye, Ben told me.” Clodagh was pressed close against his legs, all this talk of no dæmons unnerving her.

“I don’t know if it matters,” said Polly. “He’s obviously a whole person.” She paused. “You’re probably right that he’s hiding it.”

Before Jamie could ask why the Doctor would hide his dæmon, unless he had something to hide, Ben waved to them from atop the hill, shouting for them to come join him. Polly smiled and hurried away up the hill, Jamie following close behind.

*

“A mouse, maybe,” said Clodagh one night aboard the TARDIS.

“Will y’settle down and go to sleep?” Jamie said groggily.

“He could keep a mouse in his pocket. Or a rat, even. There’s enough space in there.”

Jamie opened his eyes and twisted his head to look at her, curled beside him on the pillow. “No. I cannae see him with a mouse.” He’d thought spider at first, but that wasn’t fair, and all wrong besides. Mouse was all wrong for all different reasons.

Clodagh yawned, showing her teeth. “A moth. Or a grasshopper.”

“Mibbe,” said Jamie, stroking the fur of her head absently. Aye, the Doctor was a strange enough sort to have a strange dæmon like that. He’d met a man with a butterfly dæmon once, a delicate thing that he kept in a box unless there was room enough to let her out. “I cannae see him with such a wee dæmon.” 

There was just too much of the Doctor to fit into something like a mouse or a grasshopper. The Doctor’s dæmon, he was sure, ought to be something big; one of those strange giant creatures you found in Africa and Asia, things he’d only seen in pictures. A giraffe, or an elephant. Nothing you could squeeze into a pocket.

Clodagh must have guessed what he was thinking. “Maybe he keeps it in a box that’s bigger on the inside.”

Jamie snorted. “One of those is bad enough.” He traced the pointy shell of her ear and wondered just when he’d started trusting the Doctor. Maybe when Clodagh had told him her name. He’d not had much of a choice after that.

Beside him, Clodagh climbed to her paws and flopped onto his chest, where she used to sleep when he was a boy and she could turn into something wee and furry. Now she was damn heavy, but he put up with it sometimes. “We could just _ask_ ,” she said, voice muffled by her own shaggy fur.

“We couldnae,” said Jamie, appalled. You couldn’t just ask someone what their dæmon was – could you? He’d never had to ask before. He’d never know anyone keep their dæmon hidden before. Maybe they _could_ ask. Maybe wherever the Doctor came from it was normal to ask. “We could.”

“Ask him, and see if he answers,” said Clodagh. “Or I’ll ask him for you.” Curled upon his chest, she sighed. “Ask him tomorrow.”

*

It felt like it was early in the morning when they woke, but he couldn’t really tell. There were no clocks inside the TARDIS, and even if there had been he wouldn’t know how to read them. It was morning, and it felt early. Polly and Ben were away sleeping still. The Doctor was wide awake in the console room.

“Ah, Jamie,” he said. “Just the person.” The Doctor stood, bobbing up from beneath the console, and motioned for Jamie to come over. He’d taken one of the panels below the console right off, wires spilling out like guts. “Put your hand – _here_ ,” he said, taking Jamie by the wrist and moving his hand onto a switch. “And hold it down till I tell you.” He ducked below the console again. “It’s the spatial circuits again – shouldn’t take too long to fix.”

“How long’ve you been at it?” said Jamie.

“Oh, a few hours,” said the Doctor, crouched on the floor. “Are you holding down that switch?”

“Aye,” said Jamie.

“Good, good,” the Doctor said. Inside the console, something began to buzz.

Jamie steeled himself. “Can I ask you a question, Doctor?”

“Hmm? Go right ahead.” 

The buzzing stopped, which Jamie took to mean he could speak. He took a breath and asked. “What’s your dæmon?”

There was a brief pause, and the buzzing resumed. “You see, I think if I re-route the power through the sub-spatial circuits and do some re-wiring – well, then it should be right as rain. You’re still holding that switch? I’m about to make the disconnection.”

“Och, if you don’t want to answer you could just _say_ ,” said Jamie.

The buzzing stopped. With a weary sigh, the Doctor dragged himself out from under the console and began adjusting the controls. “Well, it’s a rather difficult question, you see.”

“How’s it difficult?” said Jamie.

The Doctor looked him in the eye. “I suppose the simplest answer would be that I don’t have one.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised, for Polly had said the same thing, and on some level he’d known she was right, because usually she was and it was the only thing that made sense – but hearing it from the Doctor’s own lips almost made him short-circuit. “Don’t have – but how can you _not_ have –” He began to flinch away.

“ _Please_ don’t move.” The Doctor pressed his hand atop Jamie’s, holding him in place. “And I assure you, where I come from it’s quite normal. None of my people have dæmons.”

“But how do you –” he stuttered. Clodagh was pressed tight against his leg, anxious.

The Doctor, evidently satisfied that Jamie wasn’t about to bolt, ducked below the console again. “It may surprise you to know that you’re unique in the universe, Jamie. Of all the sentient species I’ve encountered, humans are the only ones to have dæmons. You’re really quite remarkable.” He reappeared, clutching a flat piece of metal trailing wires. “In fact, you’re all but unique in keeping yourself in two bodies. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

Aye, well he wasn’t surprised to hear that humans were the only ones to have dæmons, for humans were the only ones who were people – weren’t they? If something didn’t have a dæmon, that was how you knew it was an animal – or a monster, like the Macra or the Cybermen. But the Doctor was neither an animal nor a monster. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s really quite simple,” said the Doctor, setting down his piece of TARDIS. “Everything that you keep in Clodagh, _I_ keep,” he tapped his temple, “up here.” Jamie stared at him, at his cheerful eyes, which seemed so sincere and so _human_ – but he couldn’t be human. 

While he was gaping, the Doctor ducked away again. There was a _click_ as he slotted the metal back into place. “You can move your hand now.” Jamie didn’t move his hand. The Doctor popped back up and, with an air of weariness, gently moved Jamie’s hand off the switch. “I do hope this won’t change the way you look at me, Jamie.”

Jamie’s mouth worked in silence. Clodagh at last peeled herself away from his leg and stepped forward hesitantly, pacing around the Doctor as if she could understand better by looking at him from all angles.

In the end, he blurted out the first thought to cross his mind. “Are you a witch?”

The Doctor laughed. “I assure you, I am not a witch.”

“But all this might as well be magic.” Jamie nodded at the TARDIS console.

“I promise it isn’t.” The Doctor crouched down and began feeding wires back into the console. The sight unnerved Jamie. The bits of the TARDIS strewn across the floor looked so much to him like innards. Once he’d asked Ben if the TARDIS might not be alive and got laughed at. “It’s science, Jamie. Science beyond your comprehension. That’s all.” Clodagh stepped up beside him and peered into the console. The Doctor shooed her back. “Careful, now. Some of these are live.”

“Are you human?” said Jamie.

“No,” said the Doctor shortly. He shooed Clodagh still further back and began to fit the panel into place.

“But you’ve a soul.” It wasn’t a question. He knew it was true. It had to be true.

“You’d do well to remember, Jamie,” said the Doctor, “that just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Besides,” _click_. He stood upright. “You must admit, my way is more efficient.”

“Efficient?” Jamie echoed. “But – don’t you get lonely?”

“My, you are full of questions today, aren’t you?” said the Doctor. “No, no, don’t apologise. And no, I don’t. You see, I’ve never been any other way.” His repair work finished, he turned to the console and twisted a control. The column began to rise and fall. “I don’t need your sympathy. I’m well aware that there are advantages to your way of doing things, but you are so _vulnerable_.”

“Vulnerable?” He’d never felt he was vulnerable with Clodagh there – Clodagh, who had claws and teeth, who could see in the dark and had a nose ten times as sharp as his. Clodagh made him feel tough as nails.

But, he supposed, a man’s dæmon was his weak spot – his weak spot, and his true face. The Doctor could keep both hidden. The Doctor didn’t have a choice about it; he _had_ to keep both hidden. He thought of all the times Clodagh had shown someone what he was thinking – hissed or spat at them when he was trying to be civil, rolled over and showed her belly when he was trying to be forceful – and for half a second he was almost jealous. But only for half a second. The thought of not having Clodagh –

As if she knew what he was thinking, Clodagh sprang from the floor to the console, from the console to his shoulder, her claws digging in briefly as she found her balance. 

“Vulnerable,” the Doctor repeated firmly. With a last _thunk_ the column stilled, and they had landed. “Well!” The Doctor rubbed his hands together cheerfully. “Shall we wake Ben and Polly? Or shall we take a look outside?” He didn’t wait for an answer before opening the doors.

__

_Somewhere_

The earth outside was bare, and it crunched sandily under his feet and Clodagh’s paws. She left prints as she trotted out – and wasn’t that an odd sight, the prints of a highland wildcat in alien soil, god alone knew how far from Scotland.

The earth was bare and grey, but the sky was a riot of colours, shifting clouds and stars of red and gold and indigo, as if someone had taken a great paintbrush and gone wild with it up in the heavens.

The Doctor’s hand touched his shoulder. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”

“Where are we?” Jamie asked.

“I’ve no idea,” said the Doctor brightly. He clapped Jamie on the shoulder and strode forward. Atop the rise, he stood silhouetted against the technicolour sky, his hands on his hips. 

Jamie contemplated him for a few moments, all alone atop an empty planet. He looked down at Clodagh, and found her peering up at him expectantly. Without a word passing between them, they set off up the hill to join the Doctor.

**Author's Note:**

> Daemon key:
> 
> Jamie: Clodagh, [Scottish Wildcat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat)  
> Polly: Tobias/Toby, [Eurasian Magpie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_magpie)  
> Ben: Agrippa/Pip, [Arctic Tern](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_tern)
> 
> Kirsty McLaren: [European Rabbit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_rabbit)  
> Alexander McLaren: [Red Fox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_fox)  
> Colin McLaren: [Stoat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoat)


End file.
